Kendall County Times

Kendall County Republican Party Chairman Jim Marter is one of those concerned with election integrity in Illinois. “

Election integrity is a key issue. Most of the electorate from both sides of the aisle have lost faith in the election process for one reason or another,” Marter told Kendall County Times. 

“It is all too common to hear people say, my vote doesn’t matter.’ There is concern many votes are cast by unqualified voters. Ballots are harvested making the integrity of the voter’s intent in question. Voter roles are filled with names of people who no longer live in the district or state where their names are listed, and phantom voters may be present as well.” 

“We the people have ‘zero’ remedy in Illinois under election law to fully audit any election: There is no remedy for a full manual recount of all ballots (in any / all elections), full verification of mail-in envelopes, signature verification, as well as fully audit the machines, networks, and software which we rely upon to ensure the integrity of the vote. Our FOIA laws do not give us the access we need to ensure our election process is free from fraud and corruption.” 

“Both the Early VBM ‘Vote by Mail’ and then the late VBM have an overwhelming Democrat ballot surge. So which is it with Democrats? They are all excited to vote early, or they all wait to mail a ballot on election day? When the presumed reason they have a mail-in ballot is they are not going to be able to vote on election day. Hmm, just saying. Nothing to see here!” 

“I will sum it up with a quote from my friend, Carol Davis of the Illinois Conservative Union, we have “40 days of Fraud” in Illinois elections, and I will add, then we have election day, and 14 days of fraud to continuing to harvest VBM after election day is over. Illinois is a mess, and trust in elections is at an all-time low. Most countries do NOT allow or only allow very limited mail-in ballots. There is a reason for that since the integrity of the ballot cannot be verified!” “I want to see a full manual recount, an inspection of every VBM envelope, signature and ballot, and forensic audit of the Will County election, in particular of the Treasurer’s race!”

"Ballots are harvested making the integrity of the voter’s intent in question"

Marter's remarks come after an election in 2022 that was rife with errors and oversights. 

Recently, a temporary restraining order was issued against the DuPage County Clerk after state representative Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst) questioned how the office "improperly using Vote by Mail applications to validate a voter's signature on a Vote by Mail ballot." 

Mazzochi mentioned the court's ruling "using a Vote by Mail application to qualify signatures on the Vote by Mail ballot itself would be an obvious way to commit ballot fraud."

Additionally, there are other instances like Kath Salvi, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate whose name was left off the Schuyler County ballot.

In all of his years in politics, state representative Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) claimed that he had never come across a ballot error of this scale. “I have never seen an error of this magnitude on a ballot. This is a serious mistake.” 

“Absolutely, we should be concerned about this. It is not just the Senate race at stake here. Other races could be affected. What if there is a close local election? What if these ballots are determined to be invalid because of the error? There could be all kinds of repercussions from the mistake made on these ballots. There needs to be a viable solution to correct the error.”

Calls for election reform are also growing as a result of a recent flood of late votes that changed the results of three Will County races a week after the election. 

On election night, Republican challenger Jim Reilly was ahead of incumbent Democratic Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley, Democratic Associate Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre was behind Republican Joliet Attorney Bob Bodach, and Democratic incumbent Treasurer Tim Brophy was behind Republican opponent Raj Pillai. 

After the election on November 8, some people questioned the timing of the Democratic vote surge. 

“Over 6400 vote by mail votes dropped in Will County today. A full week after Election Day. Changing the results of multiple races. And people wonder why confidence in the system is being lost,” Safe Suburbs USA PAC said on Twitter. Ferry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Will County Gazette.